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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Air_France_Flight_44…
no time to even say goodby
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remind me never to fly that airdeath plane
The only life a pilot values more than his passengers is his own.
Once the rudder leaves, it's over.
Isn't that what happened to the plane in the N.E. somewhere who flew through a jumbo's wash, and they believed the pilot over corrected, and ripped the rudder off?
I'll post it when I get home in a few minutes. People are starting to talk about AA587 where an A300 lost it's stab due to overcorrecting after jetwash. Apparently the stab broke in a similar way.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Airfrance_fgzch_a330…
What's the difference in the 330 & the 300 in the vert stab area? Seems kind of wierd to have them snap off like that.
It would seem like the stab would have more signifigant damage if the water knocked it off.
On the 300 the mounts actually failed.
Pit Row
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447
not there was a bomb,but there was a threat
try to keep up
The stab does appear short too but I think that's mostly an optical illusion because of the angle of the photo and it's angle in the water. It would also have been bad for me to assume that it snapped off in the water but not being part of the investigation I would be surprised to find out that it snapped off at altitude and would be the cause of the crash but crazy things can happen in an over speed, if it did have an over speed condition.
They will be a bitch to find. I believe I heard they have about a 1/2-1mile range on the pingers. If that's right, at that depth ould have to be right on top of them, one would think.
WTF don't they make those things float on O/seas flights?
Looks like it broke off right above the mounts to me (I drew a line where it appears to have broken off):
they must not have had too much time ,because they didnt send a verbal message
http://www.flightstats.com/go/FlightStatus/flightStatusByFlightExtended…
Flight: (AF) Air France 447
Departure Date: Tue Jun 09, 2009
Status: Unknown Status
AF 447 Flight Information
Route: From (GIG) Rio De Janeiro, RJ, BR to (CDG) Paris, FR
Duration: 11h 15m
Equipment: Airbus Industrie A330-200 (Scheduled)
On-time Rating: 2 of 5 What's this?
Additional explanations regarding the status of this flight:
* We have reason to believe that this flight is not operational on this day. This usually means that we have an old schedule in our system.
Departure Information
Departure Status Details
Airport: (GIG) Galeao Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport
Rio De Janeiro, RJ, BR
Scheduled: 7:00 PM - Tue Jun 09, 2009
Terminal: 1
Local Time: 3:04 PM - Tue Jun 09, 2009
http://blog.seattlepi.com/aerospace/archives/170669.asp?source=mypi
Engineer decodes Air France Flight 447 emergency messages
I just finished listening to a podcast where an avionics engineer goes over the final messages sent by the Air France Flight 447 plane before it crashed.
The error messages sent by the plane show that multiple computer failures happened simultaneously, starting at 02:10 GMT, when a series of 14 warnings and failures emerged at once.
Addison Schonland, president of Innovation Analysis Group, and Michael Ciasullo, IAG's managing director of consulting services, led the podcast discussion. The engineer, who went only by Darryl, and his interviewers were careful not speculate.
Darryl is introduced as an engineer familiar with the the Honeywell ACARS system. His full name is not given because of the sensitivity over the crash, Schonland said. He does not work for Air France or Airbus.
He explains each ACARS message line by line. The ACARS is the aircraft's communications addressing and reporting system, which sends short pieces of data to other aircraft and satellites. When investigators talk of the "automatic messages" that give clues as to why the plane crashed, they are referring to the ACARS messages.
(You can see the ACARS for Flight 447 here. PDF.)
The cryptic lines contain chilling meaning.
First, the auto pilot system disengaged. Then came a basic auto flight message warning. Next, something within the flight control computer failed. Then, warning flags appeared on the personal flight displays of the captain and co-pilot. Then the rudder exceeds the limits of normal flight. And on it goes.
"With all of these failures, they don't have the information that they need to fly the aircraft in a safe environment," Darryl says. "If the pilot or first officer don't have any display functioning, then they're flying blind in the night. ... You're trying to fly the aircraft with no technology."
The last message received is a cryptic "213100206ADVISORY" warning at 02:14 GMT. It indicates loss of cabin pressure.
"There's so much going on, the pilots don't know what to do other than take a hold of the stick and fly the aircraft, because the airplane is not flying itself," Darryl said. "If this was happening in a clear day in the middle of the day, you'd still be in serious trouble, but at least you'd know if you were climbing or descending."
(Listen to the 99-cent podcast.)
Update: 11:10 p.m.: Schonland says he's making the podcast available for free as a public service.
Coverage timeline:
# Airbus A330 disappears over Atlantic
# Air France disappearance (video from AP)
# Two Americans were on board Air France flight 447 (list of nationalities)
# Air France flight 447: What role did lightning play?
# Timeline of the disappearance of Air France flight 447
# Hunch prompted Dutch man to cancel flight on Air France 447
# Air France 447: Who was on board? Will the mystery be solved?
# Air France 447: Searchers find life jacket, seat, some fuel
# Airbus.com, AirFrance.com pages reflect flight 447 crash
# Airbus A380 route expansions dampened by A330 mystery crash
# Wreckage in Atlantic is that of Air France flight 447
# Air France received bomb threat days before 447 crash
# Air France flight 447 broke apart 14 minutes after pilot signal
# Air France Flight 447: Other pilots saw 'intense flash' in sky
# Brazil military: Debris in ocean 'not' from Air France Flight 447
# Possibility: Missing Air France Flight 447 may never be found
# Air France Flight 447: Two bodies and a briefcase are found
# Air France Flight 447: What has been found so far, and where (w/map)
# Flight 447: Searchers recover 16 bodies, Air France tail section (w/latest rescue photos)
# What caused Air France Flight 447 crash? No speculation, just facts
# Engineer decodes Air France Flight 447 emergency messages
Posted by at June 8, 2009 4:42 p.m.
Category: Disasters
Comments
#312286
Posted by Del at 6/8/09 5:54 p.m.
"Then the rudder exceeds the limits of normal flight"
This is scary, as didn't another Airbus crash because the rudder attachment strength was exceeded and broke off? Is this a common thread in Airbus empanage design and analysis?
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#312301
Posted by unregistered user at 6/8/09 6:50 p.m.
"Then the rudder exceeds the limits of normal flight."
This is incorrect. The warning is actually that a fault occured in the rudder limiter, not that the rudder exceeded the limits. Loss of air speed information, as indicated by the other ACARS messages, would cause this as the rudder limiter is reliant on air speed information to determine the maximum allowed rudder angle.
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#312302
Posted by unregistered user at 6/8/09 6:53 p.m.
So this basically tells us the last 5 minutes of their lives were absolute horror. I read somewhere that another plane chose to go around the storm extending its flight by only 30 minutes. Why isn't this standard procedure?
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#312303
Posted by unregistered user at 6/8/09 7:00 p.m.
Quite the cryptologist. 5 out of 14 lines decoded. Most already reported by the news agencies; the rest meaninglessly vague.
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#312337
Posted by unregistered user at 6/8/09 10:07 p.m.
@ #312303 - funny how critics never have names.
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#312354
Posted by unregistered user at 6/8/09 11:05 p.m.
I agree with the person that suggested that the pilot should of went around the storm or at least try to, it would of made the flight alittle longer but it may just have save them. I think the regulating bodies such as the FAA and CAA should put some kind of regulation into place where airline companies upon knowing about adverse weather conditions shall file flight plans that instead of making the flight shorter, make the flight safer by going around the weather or make it mandatory for air traffic control to deviate the aircraft away from the storm.
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#312356
Posted by James H at 6/8/09 11:09 p.m.
I've been reading a lot about this crash in internet forums and elsewhere, there's a lot of info, and I think I can (respectfully!) fill in some gaps.
Firstly, these message all point to specific systems, but don't tell you what's going wrong. Most of the systems affected had redundancy, so the message could mean it has lost some redundancy, or the whole bit died.
This link decodes the eight digit subsystem codes, and should be helpful to anyone reading through the ACARS messages.
Firstly, they didn't lose Alternate Law, they lost Normal Law and went to the less protected Alternate Law. The rudder travel limit violation is probably related to switching to Alternate Law, it would probably be prevented under Normal Law.
If you look at the PFD errors, the pilot's side goes 2283001 to 002 to 001, similar on the F/O's side, so it looks like it's failing-over between PDF's. Just a guess on my part.
TCAS is separate from all computer systems, it's a radar connected to a computer connected to a cockpit speaker that says either "pull up" or "dive".
The ADR or ADIRU units, which give speed and altitude information, have received a lot of attention because of incidents with them recently. ADIRU means air data (pitot tubes) + inertial reference (they use GPS with a gyroscope to fill in blanks).
ADR disagree means the ADIRU units are mismatched and can't be trusted. There are 3, but from what I've read, it's not normal redundancy. The two primary ones must match, if you get a disagree, you have to use the 3rd, and it's not linked into the flight control computers, it links straight to the cockpit displays.
The first ADR error is a pitot error at 0210Z, which is relatively common (they ice over), but the IR's aren't exposed to the outside, so it's probably an electrical error (unless a gyroscope went down). It looks likely the pitot error was electrical as in the podcast, and the IR2 error was probably only IR2, and #1 and #3 are simply mentioned in the error message as being good.
With the primary and secondary flight control computers, PRIM has three identical computers, SEC two, and it seems likely that both simply lost one computer, because both these messages were warnings, and each was numbered "PRIM 1" "SEC 1". People with more tech knowledge should be able to confirm this.
FMGKC1 is yet another control computer.
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#312372
Posted by Abdooo at 6/9/09 1:02 a.m.
As a media man having accummulation of such news concerning plane crashes ,I wonder and astonished why does cheif pilot insist as I ruled out from a lot of stories to dash in what he describe (black tropical clouds)instead of attempting a logically possible emergency landing in Fernando de Noronha as I saw from my google earth an airport with a long runway.With all respect to the experts in this feild I think the pilot proudness of his sophesticated aircraft misguided him or them from the basic principle of human lives safety.
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#312410
Posted by Dimitris at 6/9/09 7:02 a.m.
To Abdooo:
Why does everryone remembers the safety part after an accident? How many times that there is a delay have you thought 'ohh maybe the delay is because I'm safer cause someone checks the plane twice'.. How many times when there is a delay in your flight departure because of plane late arrival you thought 'ohh maybe they changed course to avoid storm o r turbulence, so it doesn't matter my delay as long as the people in the plane are safe'.
Be honest... no passenger cares about safety because 99% of passengers now zero about planes, all passengers care is that the coffee is warm, the flight is on time and that there is a fair amount of 'sorry' and 'thank you fly with us again sir'.
Cheers, and next time your flight is delayed, pray to god because it is for your safety... right?
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#312462
Posted by new direction at 6/9/09 9:29 a.m.
The engineer, who went only by Darryl. Maybe they should have got his brother Darryl and his other brother Darryl to help him with the translation.
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#312486
Posted by PigeonPoop at 6/9/09 10:14 a.m.
Since when are data recorder messages encrypted? I thoght the reason for them was to determine what happened after a wreck. This is the first time I have heard that we needed a Darryl to de-code. Seems to me if they provided plain text data.....................but wtf do I know
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#312493
Posted by Peace at 6/9/09 10:40 a.m.
You know what's funny about some of the comments is that when I worked for an airline, people would be furious, absolutely furious when we canceled a flight due to bad weather.
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#312502
Posted by DiggzDime at 6/9/09 10:50 a.m.
Posted by Dimitris at 6/9/09 7:02 a.m.
To Abdooo:
Why does everryone remembers the safety part after an accident? How many times that there is a delay have you thought 'ohh maybe the delay is because I'm safer cause someone checks the plane twice'.. How many times when there is a delay in your flight departure because of plane late arrival you thought 'ohh maybe they changed course to avoid storm o r turbulence, so it doesn't matter my delay as long as the people in the plane are safe'.
Be honest... no passenger cares about safety because 99% of passengers now zero about planes, all passengers care is that the coffee is warm, the flight is on time and that there is a fair amount of 'sorry' and 'thank you fly with us again sir'.
Cheers, and next time your flight is delayed, pray to god because it is for your safety... right?
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Lol...I had to laugh at this because I just came back from Vegas yesterday and in the airport on the way back I was at a gate with passengers who were awaiting their flight a gate over and when they were told that their flight was delayed a hour or so all you heard was a large group moan and people cussing out the airline carrier. I mean I can understand. Most people dont know jack about airplane safety other then the demostration they give when we are about to depart but I dont think any one of those people said anything like "ahh...no big deal..they just want to ensure were going to be safe"
If it's 4 miles, they only have to miss it by 30 degrees to miss it by .4 mile. That ain't much.
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